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EU police agency launches anti-smuggling center

Smuggling would-be migrants into Europe is the fastest-growing market for criminals on the Continent, according to Europol, the European law enforcement agency, which launched a scheme Monday to tackle the problem.

“Europol’s research indicates 90 percent of migrants arriving in Europe have their journey facilitated by a criminal organization. Tackling this huge people smuggling trade, therefore, has become an essential part of the EU’s response to the migrant crisis,” said Rob Wainwright, Europol’s director, as he launched the European Migrant Smuggling Center, which aims to help member countries dismantle criminal networks.

He said the new center at Europol’s headquarters in The Hague will help EU members “improve their exchange of information and operational coordination in the fight against organized migrant smuggling.”

Criminal networks that smuggle migrants into and within the EU made between €3 billion and €6 billion in 2015, according to Europol. It says that amount could double or even triple if the migration crisis continues throughout the year.

“The launch of this center will reinforce cooperation with member states, international organizations, national stakeholders and European agencies, with a responsibility to fight migrant smuggling,”said Dimitris Avramopoulos, the European commissioner for migration.

“With people-smuggling a global issue it is vital that we continue to streamline our efforts to identify, monitor and disrupt these transnational criminal networks inside and outside of Europe,” said Tim Morris, Interpol’s executive director of police services.

The idea of setting up the support center was discussed at a meeting in October at Interpol’s French headquarters. The talks were given greater impetus after the Paris terror attacks in November. EU justice and home affairs ministers urged Europol to speed up creation of the center after the attacks, in which two suspects are believed to have entered Europe as part of a wave of migrants.

According to Frontex, the EU’s border management agency, more than 500,000 migrants were detected at EU external borders in the first eight months of 2015, compared with 280,000 for the whole of 2014. In the first few weeks of 2016, more than 84,000 irregular migrants reached the EU, according to the International Organization for Migration (IOM).

“In migrants, smugglers have found the goose that lays the golden egg. Neither the EU nor single member states are able to deal with the enormous number of humans reaching our continent. Smugglers have identified the loophole and are now taking advantage of it, and making a lot of money,” said a senior intelligence official talking on condition of anonymity.

An expensive, dangerous journey

According to the IOM, 421 migrants are estimated to have lost their lives in the Mediterranean since the beginning of 2016, and 3,770 died in 2015. Smugglers charge anywhere from €500 for a child to €10,000 for a family to be brought to Europe.

One smuggler, who used Facebook to drum up business, wrote: “The cost of a package with travel from Turkey to Libya by air and onward sea journey from Libya to Italy costs $3,700. For the sea journey, adults cost $1,000 and three children cost $500.”

Europol has identified more than 230 locations, both inside and outside the EU, from where migrants are smuggled into the bloc. The agency holds intelligence on more than 40,000 individuals suspected of being involved in migrant smuggling. The most common nationalities of these suspects are Bulgarian, Egyptian, Hungarian, Iraqi and Pakistani.

In 2015 , information on more than 10,000 suspects was shared with Europol, resulting in more than 1,550 investigations. The agency said 44 percent of the criminal networks it investigated were made up of non-EU nationals, with 30 percent run by EU citizens and 26 percent a mixture of the two.

The European Union has called an extraordinary summit with Turkey for early March to coordinate efforts to stem the flow of migrants across the Aegean into Greece.